2 Year Anniversary

Wednesday 12th November 2014

Armando and I are officially already into our second year of marriage. The first year was definitely very challenging with moving to England, meeting my side of the family for the first time and bringing our second child into the world. The most challenging part was having to be separated for those few months Armando was in El Salvador and I was in England.
But now, in our second year, we moved back to El Salvador as a family of four. We bought our first home together and even made our family more whole with a new little puppy. As always it's brought it's up's and down's but this year has definitely brought more up's. We're not taking our lives and time together for granted because we learnt how it felt to be apart.

It's quite hard to find decent English cards here and Armando's family isn't big on giving cards for events but I am so I always try to find a nice one. The card that I found had some lovely words in, not 100% relevent but enough to make me smile and pass it along to the one I love.
"For My Husband on our anniversary

This life we share, it may be less than perfect, but it's got one big thing going for it -

It's ours.

It's yours and mine, and it's made of all the moments we've lived together, all the memories that no one shares but us.

It's ours, and it simply wouldn't be without our commitment to what we began together all those years ago.

It's ours and, perfect or not, it's something to be grateful for, something I'm happy I share with you"

I got Armando a t-shirt and new lego phone case and he got me a mirror and a bag.

To celebrate our day we went out for a meal to a place called Ruby Tuesday's that we hadn't been to before, it was really nice.

Last year I decided to start a tradition of taking a picture of us holding the previous year's picture. It's kind of awkward asking someone to take a picture of us while we're holding a photo frame but I think it's worth it because the pictures turn out to look quite nice.

1 Year Anniversary

Tuesday 12th November 2013

Today we celebrated our first year of marriage. It's hard to believe it has already been a whole year yet such a lot has happened in that time. We had some wonderful celebrations to end 2012 then 2013 has been packed full of fun.
To celebrate our day today we got the kids dressed up and took some pictures at home before heading to Liverpool on the train.

When we got to Liverpool we went to a restaurant that my friend had recommended. It was an all you can eat with all different styles of food, it was really nice.
After eating we walked to the docks and got lots more pictures by the water (including the yearly picture tradition I want to start of us holding our previous year picture) before going on the huge Ferris wheel there.

When we were done on the Ferris wheel we had a walk around the shops and bought a couple of things then sat to admire all the Christmas decorations (it was already getting dark by then).
We got the train back home and finished off our day giving the kids baths and a slightly earlier bed time.
A lovely first anniversary with my wonderful man who I love oh so much and our beautiful children. The first of many many years.

Wedding Ring Tattoo's

Tuesday 13th Novemeber 2012 

We decided that instead of getting actual wedding rings we would get tattoo's like rings instead. You can't loose it, it's a lot more personal and it shows how completely committed we are to each other.
We each designed our own tattoo and included the date of our marriage (12/11/12). We designed them to be just like a ring going around our fingers with the date on the outside and a little personal design on the inside. Mine had a letter A with a heart on either side and Armando's was in the shape of an infinite sign but with a heart on one side and a K on the other.

When we went to get them done the tattoo artist told us having them on the inside of the finger was a bad idea because they would fade away very fast. So instead of getting the full ring tattoo's we'd planned we had them just on the back of our fingers. We're still really pleased with how they turned out and it means they're more noticeable this way too.

Marriage Celebrations

After we had finished up with the lawyer and were officially married the first thing to happen was everyone gathering around to congratulate us.

Armando his friends and I went out for a meal while Grandma and Grandad watched Chloe.

After the meal we went to buy some drinks from the market and went back home to celebrate. When we got home it was about 10pm and Chloe had woken up. I tried to put her to sleep but there was too much noise in the house so she just came downstairs with us. She's always well behaved when there's lots of people around.

There were lots of shots drank and lots of drunken dancing from Armando's friends. It was a great way of celebrating and having some fun. Chloe didn't go to bed until everyone had left for the night but we figured it was ok since it was just a one off.

Two days after our marriage Armando, Chloe and I went out for a nice meal together as an extra little family celebration.

Married!

Monday 12th November 2012

Exactly two years after we got engaged, we got married today.

It wasn't a big white wedding with tons of friends and family surrounding us like I would have hoped for. It was just at home with a lawyer and some of Armando's friends to be witnesses and translate for me. Admittedly it's not as romantic, without the nervous walk down the isle of the humble smiles of close loved one's but since I have no-one here with me in El Salvador this was the best option for us.

Even though it's not really a wedding, it's the day of our marriage and that makes it so special in itself. I'm now connected completely to the man I love forever. 12/11/12! A fantastic date for the marriage. Not only is it just a cool date to write down but it's also 2 years after Armando proposed to me. Armando loves to have little random meanings behind everything too and when he realised that 121112 added up to 8 (his lucky number) he said "it has to be that day!"

We each wrote each other something special to read before getting married. I just wrote something really short that are like my 'vows' I guess. Armando wrote me a letter and along with it he gave me a letter he had written years ago, a year before he even met me. He wrote it to his future love saying that even though he didn't know who I was yet or if we'd already met he already had the love in his heart for me knowing that I would be with him in the future, it was so sweet. It's pretty strange that he wrote it in English even though it's not his first language but I guess deep down he somehow knew he wanted someone from somewhere else.

My something old was a picture of my Mum from her wedding day, something new was the dress that Chloe wore, something borrowed was a bracelet from Armando's Mum and something blue was my hair clip.

We had 3 witnesses for our marriage (Mario, Alvaro and Alejandro). They all came early (which was very surprising especially on Mario's count because he's always late haha). The lawyer came just after 7pm. I really am not sure about everything she said because it wasn't really translated but it was just all the legal mumbo jumbo that goes along with getting married. I was pretty bummed that I didn't even get to say "I do"! "Si accepto", not quite the same ring to it right?

We signed our life away (just kidding) then that was it... we were married. No longer Miss Tarry. Now Mrs Tarry Tamayo (I still don't like that I have to have the two names, now Armando, Chloe and I all have different names) but that's just how they do it here.

Fall in Love

Armando and I became really close as friends before we actually become more than that. We spoke a lot about everything in our lives: our hopes and dreams for the future and we had many things in common. As we spoke more we became so much more than just friends and every day that we spoke I fell a little more in love with him. Armando is such a compassionate person always writing things to me just to make me smile. Just like me he wants a big family. He grew up with just one sister who he isn't really that close to so having a lot of children and being in a close relationship is really important to him. I have a few siblings but I still want a big family because that's what I'm used to and what I love. I'm so happy to have found someone in my life that wants the same things as I do.
We never go a day without saying I love you and I hope that we do that for the rest of our lives because although it's only a small thing those words really do mean a lot and expressing them every day is important to me.
Armando knows exactly how to make me smile and I do everything I can just to make him smile too because that smile brightens my days (I even call him my sunshine sometimes which is why I have a tattoo that says about "my sunshine brightening my days").
I fall in love all over again every single day with Armando. He is always doing things for me and putting mine and the children's needs before his own. The day we became parents I saw even more how much he means to me because he automatically became such a wonderful and loving Father and I know if he could he would literally give them his heart. I'm more than happy to know that I have found the perfect partner in life who will always stand by me and protect me and our children.
I look forward to growing old and falling more and more in love with Armando every day for the rest of our lives; always holding each others hands and hearts.

Have a long distance relationship

I first met Armando on the internet when he added me to myself one not so special Saturday morning at the beginning of March 2010. There are so many things about that day that could have been different and we never would have met. He didn't usually get the chance to go on the computer on Saturdays because his sister was home and she used it, but that day she was out. He only searched for people online from England and I just happened to be online at the time so he added me. We didn't really talk that much when we first added each other. We would talk occasionally and spoke about our tattoo's since that was a common interest we had. We added each other to an instant messenger and still didn't really talk that often fro a while but then one day we just started talking a lot and really clicked.
We started to talk every single day and since neither of us worked or had many commitments we would talk all day long on the webcam and microphones.
It didn't take us long to start planning to meet each other but with us living so far away from each other (me in England and him in El Salvador) it wasn't easy. Originally we were planning for Armando to come and stay in England for a few months with me but since I was living in a small house with quite a few people and Armando wouldn't be able to stay for long without getting a VISA we decided that I would come over to El Salvador instead.
I booked the tickets and then we eagerly awaited the day for our meeting to come.
I travelled to El Salvador on Wednesday 8th September 2010 just 6 months after we first met. It doesn't seem like it was very long to most people I suppose but since we spoke to each other literally every single day we were already so close and our lives were already pretty much so involved with each other. It was just the start of something beautiful and it shows that online and long distance relationships can work out, no matter how hard they can be to start off with.